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Burns, Kelly  
Wottrich, Tyler; Templeton, Karisa; Keogh, Cassie; Moe, Charlette; Law, William; +8 others

Hi everyone,

At Tyler’s request, I’m starting a thread for us to share thoughts on the upcoming search for the Director position. I’ll share here the thoughts I’ve had mulling over in my brain.

As I said before, if a letter were to arise, I don’t know if I would sign it. I wouldn’t want to give any reason to be “kicked off” the search committee, because the reality is that we might still have to do one this summer. But I think these are important things to present to the administration to ask them to reconsider mounting the search now and moving it to the Fall semester. Even doing a “quick” Fall semester search would be better if they had to start in January, in my opinion.
 
- Availability of People:
	- Faculty: With the building more or less offline, we won’t be in the building much not to mention that we’re not under contract for the summer.
	- Staff: Not sure about this group of people, but the building limitations and Chelsey’s maternity leave likely will spell limited access to staff over the summer??? Bill will know more.
	- Students: Likewise we won’t have many students around doing things either. Nearly no activity.
	- What will our candidates possibly learn about our programs, students, and faculty with limited exposure to these people?
	- How will faculty and students give adequate and meaningful feedback related to this hire?
- Building availability: Most of the building is going to be closed due to renovations and construction.
	- Trying to plan around construction/renos will be difficult at best and could possibly even delay some plans.
	- What can they really learn about our facilities if they aren’t open or only partially open?
- Quality of pool applicants: Late search could result in a small pool of applicants.
	- Most qualified candidates are very likely already tenured elsewhere and might not be free to apply at this time due to accreditation issues.
	- There are guidelines about this with NASM. Not sure about NAST. Would we run into accreditation issues trying to hire someone away from another accredited institution?
	- If the applicants must be at Full Professor status, that means they’re likely going to have “a lot of life” to dig up and relocate to Fargo in an extremely short amount of time. I would imagine individuals as young as 45 and likely as old as 60 applying. Will they want to relocate this quickly and abruptly?
	- This likely leaves our pool with extremely inexperienced individuals (I would guess).
	- Likely other factors here that I haven’t thought of…
- Articulation with the Challeys:
	- Do the Challeys even know this search is happening?
	- The Challeys are major stakeholders in our programs (and the university), so it would make sense to involve them in this search in an appropriate way to make sure that the “fit” is good with them.
- What is the motivation:
	- I can’t really think of reasons related to student success or program initiatives that would make a quick early summer search make sense, and of course they haven’t shared their motivations yet either.

I’m sure I thought of more but right now I can’t remember too much and I have another lesson starting soon. Hopefully this is a good starting point.

Kelly

_________________________

KELLY W. BURNS, DMA
Assistant Professor of Voice
Director of NDSU Opera
Challey School of Music
NORTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY
p: (701) 231–7932 
Pronouns: he, him, his

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